Software Freedom Day 2018 FOSSers (Thrissur, India)

FOSSers VAST

FOSSers (Free & Open Source Software Users) of Vidya Academy of Science And Technology is conducting a Mapathon with OpenStreetMaps on Software Freedom Day, 2018 September 15.

The Indian state of Kerala was affected by a devastating flood in August of 2018. OpenStreetMaps came to great help in organizing rescue and relief efforts. But OSM mapping in Kerala is lacking data. To solve this, FOSSers club of VAST is conducting a mapathon to introduce students to mapping.

Event

FOSSers (Free and Open Source Software uSers) conducted an OpenStreetMap mapathon on Software Freedom Day 2018 (September 15).

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Unlike Google Maps, OSM is completely open. It's data can be accessed and used by anyone. It is free software communities like FOSSers that help mostly in contributing to OSM.

In the recent Kerala Floods, technology was used extensively to help in relief efforts. 2 such sites were keralarescue.in and microid.in/keralaflood. Both of them used OSM. But many places in Kerala are still not mapped. If we could map all of Kerala, then when such a calamity happen, we can be more prepared in overcoming it. And we realised this in the recent flood.

Together with FSUG Thrissur (thrissur.fsug.in), OSM Kerala, KOLE (kole.org.in), River Research Centre we conducted a mapathon on Software Freedom Day.

About 40 people participated and we were able to make 4,400+ contributions to OSM in less than 5 hours.

CategoryTeam2018